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When people talk of the early days of Moroccan style and the European and American jetsetters of the 1960s and 70s, the talk is often about Talitha Getty. Her multi-cultural “couture of the souks” style is captured in this iconic Vogue magazine photo, nowadays re-created by travelers on riad rooftops:

Moroccan Style: Talitha Getty and Fashion

Talitha and her husband, John Paul Getty, Jr., who was the son of the richest man in the world at the time, enjoyed a high-flying lifestyle that revolved around world leaders in music and fashion. Yves St. Laurent was a good friend and fellow resident of Marrakech. The Beatles and the Rolling Stones spent a Christmas together in their palace. And parties, many parties. Talitha Getty knew how to throw a party:

“A welcoming, fantastical, joyous life, at once sensible and sybaritic . . . Mrs. Getty prowls the marketplace, bringing back delights for the house and table. Best she brings back entertainers—dancers, acrobats, storytellers, geomancers and magicians. … While Salome is playing in the background, snake charmers charm and tea boys dance, balancing on their feet trays freighted with mint tea and burning candles.” – Diana Vreeland, Vogue

Like Lady Diana and Princess Grace of Monaco, Talitha’s mystique may be amplified because she died so young, at age 30. She is frozen in time with flawless skin and lush hair. Diana Vreeland said that Talitha was THE style icon during her Moroccan caftan and Persian jewelry years. Talitha to this day is still celebrated as a style muse by fashion designers.

Moroccan Style: Architectural Arts in Marrakech

There was someone else who revolved in the Getty’s beautifully-designed orbit in Marrakech.

Someone who had a bigger, more enduring influence on Moroccan style. I bet you haven’t heard of him. He deserved greater public recognition because hallmarks of Marrakech style today are traced to him. He revived dying arts and filled opulent homes with beautiful tiles and tadelakt walls, ceilings, fireplaces, floors and furniture. The funny thing is, he wasn’t Moroccan. He was from Memphis.

His name was Bill Willis.

(Please forgive me if I slip up and call him Bruce Willis and don’t catch it. It wouldn’t be the first time!)

Have you admired the tadelakt walls in Marrakech homes? That is because of Bill Willis. Before Bill, tadelakt was used in the hammams because it’s waterproof. It was not used throughout houses. But this polished plaster surface is now the quintessential Marrakech wall.

Have you seen crazy, colorful combinations of patterned tiles on fireplaces in Marrakech? That is because of Bill Willis. He restored and revived zellij mosaic tilework and brought it into the 20th century with a “modern ideas with Moroccan materials” mentality.

Now, because Bill Willis outlived Talitha by many decades (she died in 1971, he in 2009), he had far more time to do his work. Bill’s design legacy in Marrakech began with Talitha Getty, so she started the ball rolling. Bill accompanied the Gettys on their honeymoon in Marrakech, where they bought a ramshackle rubble of a palace for $10,000 in 1966. It was once a royal place, but was now a ruin. Here’s Bill standing outside of it:

This was in the 1960s, long before Marrakech was the tourist attraction that it is today. I imagine it was beyond rough for travelers used to luxury. But from this ruin, within only a few years, Bill Willis and the Gettys created breathtaking beauty. They created a place with a name prepared for debauchery: Palais du Zahir (also known as Palais de la Zahia) — the Pleasure Palace.

“Bill created the Marrakech look, and it started with that house,” says the decorator Jacques Grange

Not many photos of Palais du Zahir from the Getty days exist publicly. I have a rare book of Bill Willis’ work — you can only get it at the Majorelle Gardens bookstore in Marrakech, unless you’re willing to pay $300+ for the rare times it pops up on eBay or Amazon — and Palais du Zahir is not in the book. But recently, I found a video about Bill that shows the Getty palace. It’s a long video that explains Bill’s influence on Marrakech style as you know it today. The palace is shown at about the 6 minute mark:

I hit replay and screen-captured those Palais du Zahir rooms like a crazy obsessed woman!

Here’s a few more pictures of the palace from the 1970 January Vogue issue, photographed by Patrick Lichfield:

If you ever want the original Vogue issue, I found mine on eBay and see them there occasionally. I could probably be persuaded to part with mine!

Today, the palace is owned by writer Bernard-Henri Lévy and his actress wife Arielle Dombasle. Here’s the most famous rooftop in Marrakech as it is today, shown in WSJ Magazine:

I notice, it has a different brick floor now. Unless this is a different area of the roof than what we see in the 1970 Vogue magazine.

Don’t those look like the same iron grilles that Talitha is peeking through in the photo above?

No longer a place of drug-fueled hedonistic parties (none other than Keith Richards said that Talitha Getty had access to the best opium), now the palace is a discreet address where feuding world leaders gather in privacy and try to broker peace, and for an intellectual writer to think and write in solitude. Some palace walls have stood since the 1500s or the 1700s, depending on who you ask. Oh, what the walls must have seen over the centuries!

The current owners worked with Bill Willis before his death to honor his contributions to the palace’s style. According to the Wall Street Journal:

“They still use the furniture Willis designed for the Gettys, including a four-poster bed painted like the Good Ship Lollipop in a fantasia of ice cream colors and Berber-inspired motifs.”

Marrakech Design: Enduring Influence of Bill Willis

Bill Willis’ contribution to Marrakech and Moroccan style is now unnoticed and unappreciated. Some of that appears to be his own fault. Though he had a reputation as an exacting and demanding designer, he slept until late afternoon and his neighbors thought he was a vampire. And he was intoxicated during most waking hours. Despite that, his genius still prevailed in glorious Marrakech architecture. Efforts might be underway to raise his profile, possibly through the riad that was once his home in Marrakech.

How often does a designer influence the style of a whole city? And in a way that stimulates a whole travel and tourism industry, boosting an entire economy? At every corner you turn in Marrakech, there are photo ops. Old walls, old doors, what’s below your feet and above your head, somehow it’s all very special. Marrakech inspires our imaginations. Captures us and makes us want to return. Would Bill Willis have ever imagined that happening? Beyond many nondescript doors and plain medina walls there is glittering opulence, pierced metal lanterns casting dancing shadows, woven textiles exploding with color against fantastical patterned walls. Run your hands along the cool smooth tadelakt walls. Bill Willis made that possible.

If you want a unique, one-of-a-kind and affordable headboard, how about painting a headboard on the wall? If you like to change decor often, you can easily paint over it to make a new look. You can customize it to the color and design you want. That’s what I did to make a unique headboard in our apartment in India.

That was only 3 days after I launched this blog! In February 2018, I spent three weeks in India, working in the apartment. I finally painted this:

I’m happy to see this idea come true!

Why did it take so long to get things done? Two reasons: 1) There was a lot of trial and error with architects and contractors from half a planet away, and we got so frustrated that we stopped working on the apartment for a while, and 2) My husband and I both worked full-time so there was limited time to go to India.

How to make a painted headboard wall

As you’ll see below, I used stencils for my headboard wall. But you don’t have to use stencils. You can paint whatever you want. I mostly hope to inspire you to see a different way to do things than the usual way, which is to buy a wood headboard or upholstered headboard. You don’t even have to paint all the way up to the ceiling. You can paint a square, rectangle, arched or rounded shape on the wall in the area where you usually see headboards.

I thought this base coat would make it easier to build rich color than stenciling directly on a white wall.

Now, 3 years later, I dabbed and swirled one of the shimmery Stencil Cremes over the Silk Route paint. I think this was Aged Nickel? Or it could have been Bronze Age. I’m sorry I didn’t keep notes.

Here you can see the mottled metallic look made by the shimmery paint:

It’s a little blotchy but that gets covered up a lot by the stenciled pattern.

So many of these photos will be bad, I admit it! I painted most of this at night with bad lighting. The lighting was even worse than usual because one of the wall sconces stopped working.

Here you see I painted the big diamonds along the edges first. Then I filled in the middle with the small diamonds:

This is 10 feet tall! It’s hard to tell by the photos how tall it is. It took many hours to fill in the whole pattern. I had two of these small diamond stencils, so I could work in two areas at the same time while paint dried.

Almost done!! After painting all night until about 4 a.m.

I remember being really sick and coughing so hard it hurt while painting this. Why keep painting? There was limited time before I had to go home to Chicago. And I’d already waited more than 7 years to paint this! So I didn’t care how sick I was. I decided not to climb to the top of the ladder and finish that top row at 4 a.m. when I was so tired and sick. I left it for the next day.

Once this was done, it seemed like it needed something more. It just didn’t “feel finished.” So I painted some more. I added dark borders and scrolly stencil patterns on the edges:

The scrolly pattern is a custom stencil cut with my Cricut Explore, with a vector illustration purchased from Shutterstock.

Ahhhh! This feels better! It feels done!

Are there enough diamond shapes here?!

Also, I “pounced” or dabbed bronze and silver colors over the patterns with a brush to make an antique and “slightly dirty” look:

The day after, I was so tired from painting till 4 a.m., I crashed with the phone next to me, probably in the middle of Instagramming. When I opened my eyes, I saw this. The rich, multi-patterned look I worked so hard to make:

It’s furnished simply. We spend only a few weeks a year here so we don’t need much stuff. And everything gets very dusty in India, even indoors, so the less stuff we have, the less stuff we have to clean.

Some walls still need more art. But the “headboard wall” is complete. Finally.

Whoa! We now see the big difference one change can make! This change even made us remove a costly idea from our One Room Challenge makeover plan, and we’ll save a lot of money because we don’t think we need that idea now.

What’s the change?

I could not get the bright “blown out over-exposed photo” look in this room before. Even with a big 4’ by 9’ window. The walls sucked up the light and refused to share much light with us! I knew removing the wallpaper would make a difference. But I was surprised by how much difference.

Once upon a time, I liked the dark coziness that wrapped you in a warm bear hug. But now I need lightness and happiness in here to lift my spirits. And, if we sell our house sooner than later, I think lighter rooms are better. Thus the need for “Operation Lighten & Brighten” during this One Room Challenge.

See my Week 2 “procrastination post” when I took too many breaks from removing wallpaper and instead pinned coffee table ideas on Pinterest. Just keepin’ it honest.

If you want to lighten up rooms in your home, and you’re on a limited budget, here are ideas to get the biggest impact, listed in order of potential impact …

Biggest Changes

Lighten the Walls

If you have a room that feels too dark, look at your walls as a first step.

Even if your walls have a color that you don’t think is dark, maybe it’s more of a “medium” color, the color can still make a room feel darker. Walls are an enormous surface area in most rooms, unless you have many big windows. Painting walls lighter will give you the biggest impact for your money.

You saw above the difference of removing a “medium” golden color wallpaper in our family room. Here you can see the true darkness of the wallpaper – the difference between the paper and the bare drywall beneath it:

Right now, the walls are bare drywall, as I await an order of Pure & Original Fresco lime paint. It’s coming over from Europe! I will paint the walls a much lighter warm cream/golden color. I want to keep the warmth of the previous wallpaper, just lighter.

The color doesn’t have to be white to make a bright room. You can use many light colors. Imagine the lightest colors on a paint strip, like these Sherwin-Williams colors:

You can also look at the Light Reflectance Value (LRV) number of a paint. You might not have heard of this number before, but it’s so useful. This number measures how much light a paint color will reflect. Numbers range from 1 to 100 with 1 being the darkest, 100 the lightest.

You can find LRV numbers on the backs of paint chips and on paint manufacturer websites. Look for numbers that are 50 or more; 65+ gets pretty bright. 100 is pure white.

I assumed that your ceilings are white, as the majority of ceilings are. But if they are not, all the info above applies to ceiling paint color as well.

Add More Lightbulbs

Literally, lights are needed to light a room! Light paint with high LRV numbers can still look dark and dingy if there aren’t enough lightbulbs in the room. Especially in the corners, where paint on walls and ceilings will turn dark gray if there isn’t enough light in the corners.

Use a mix of table lamps, floor lamps, wall sconces, chandeliers to distribute lots of light throughout a room.

This tip doesn’t have to be a budget-buster. You can find lighting on sale. You can find inexpensive lamps, wall sconces and chandeliers at thrift stores, eBay, Facebook Marketplace and Craigslist. Don’t worry about the finish. Instead, look at the shape and size. You can always paint a lamp. Yes, even metal! Prime it and/or use a chalk or clay paint. DIY blogs are full of tutorial posts showing how to transform shiny brass lamps and chandeliers with a few coats of paint. You can make a farmhouse look, French antique look, boho look, mid century modern. All with paint. If a thrift store lamp lacks a shade, you can get shades at stores like Target, HomeGoods, Hobby Lobby.

Lighten Dark Wood Furniture and Built-Ins

If you have large dark surfaces like a dark armoire, entertainment center or bookshelves, consider lightening them.

First, I know that people in favor of painting furniture and people not in favor of painting furniture are like Republicans and Democrats when debating our positions. My position is, your house is your house. Your things are your things. What you do is your business. I would only advise to not paint valuable, truly collectible pieces of furniture. Those are investments that rise in value. Most furniture is not that. I think the line in the sand is, will the furniture sell for far more than its original cost today, as it is, unpainted? If not, paint it if you want to.

I will paint these oak shelves with Fusion Mineral Paint in Cathedral Taupe color. See a sample board in the lower left corner here:

Both these Fusion colors look okay with the warmer colors and golds in this room. The choice was a toss-up between Algonquin and Cathedral Taupe. Cathedral Taupe is lighter so I chose that. After all this work, I don’t want shelves that feel too dark!

I’ve already tested the Fusion Mineral Paint with a topcoat of Modern Masters Dead Flat Varnish, and I have a General Finishes flat varnish. That seems to make a tough enough surface to withstand moving the stuff on the shelves occasionally so I can dust. I don’t know about scraping heavy books across the shelves — as you can see we don’t keep books in this room. We have shelves in an office for books.

You can also explore paints that are recommended for kitchen cabinets. Those paints, such as Benjamin Moore Advance and Sherwin-Williams ProClassic, will be durable and super-tough because of the heavy use and wear that kitchen cabinets get.

Your cost for this includes a cleaner like TSP and deglosser to improve paint adhesion, sandpaper, tannin-blocking primer and paint. That is far less than buying new quality furniture.

Lighten a Dark Fireplace

Most fireplaces have enough visual punch in a room, that changing the surface can change how you feel in the room. You can lighten a dark brick fireplace in several ways, some more expensive than others:

Whitewash the brick with watered down paint

Cover with stone veneer

Cover with tile

Cover with drywall and paint

We plan to “beige-wash” or “gray-wash” the fireplace. White will be too stark in this room.

I resisted the whitewashed brick idea for the longest time. I’m still not sure. If I don’t like it, it can always be covered with stone, tile or drywall in the future.

Finally, Lighten the Floor

Now that we’ve covered all the other major surfaces, let’s get down to the floor business. I listed this last in “impact” because I think even when floors are dark, if vertical surfaces in a room are all light, the room will still be okay. Usually much of the floor area is covered by things like area rugs and furniture.

If your floors are dark, whatever their material (carpet, wood, laminate, tile, etc.), flooring is not cheap to change. We’ve chosen to replace carpeting in this room instead of extending the hardwood in here.

Putting hardwood in here would unleash an expensive domino effect across the whole first floor of our house, to make all hardwood floors match. If I’m paying money, it will not be for honey oak stain! But we don’t want to change all hardwood color right now.

If you have a very limited budget, the one option I can think of to lighten your floors is this: go to sites like RugsUSA.com and eSaleRugs. Watch for clearance and sales where you can get rugs 50% up to 75% and 80% off. With free shipping. You can find a large selection of styles and colors during these sales. You are sure to find something you like. You can get large rugs. We recently got several rugs on sale that are 8’ x 10’ for less than $250.

No, you won’t get the top quality wool vintage rugs imported from Morocco for these prices. But here’s the thing. We have a valuable 100% vintage silk rug and it is sometimes out on the floor. But then cat poop or cat vomit happens nearby – thankfully never on that rug – and we freak out and we roll up the rug and put it in a closet.

Have you ever heard the saying “don’t wear jewelry that you can’t afford to lose.” Well I say “don’t use rugs that you can’t afford to get pooped on.” Kids, dogs, cats, intoxicated adults, adults who paint without protecting the carpet (ummmmm been there done that), we can all be tough on carpets. It’s okay to get a cheap rug if you worry about these things.

Look for a rug with these qualities:

Lighter color – you can put an area rug on top of wall-to-wall carpeting to lighten it up

Pattern and color variation, enough to hide spills and messes – rugs with consistent even color will show off the stains

Smaller Changes

Remove Dark Useless Things Overhead

Look above you and see if there are big, heavy, solid, dark things higher up on walls that don’t need to be there. There was a big dark oak shelf installed about 7 feet up on the wall, above the fireplace.

This shelf drew the eye too much to a useless spot, and it also FELT like a big heavy thing looming over our heads. We never displayed anything on it, so what was the point of it? Once we removed the shelf, the light from the sconces also seems brighter. That light is not getting blocked by a dark shelf. You’d be surprised how that little change made a difference in light.

Use Furniture with Light “Visual Weight”

I don’t know what they actually weigh, it’s possible they could weigh nearly the same. The solid coffee table has a much heavier “visual feel” to it than the glass-topped table that’s open. Your eye gets drawn to the solid table, but your eye goes through the open glass table. If you want a lighter brighter room, choose tables with glass or light color tops, that are open so you can see through them, that have thinner light legs.

I am probably not going to follow that advice myself, because I got an idea for a DIY table that you’ll see soon. Still, the table I’m making will be open in the middle, which is an improvement over the Chinese chest that’s currently sitting in the middle of our room. The chest is solid and dark and has a lot of “visual weight.” We will likely move this Chinese chest to a corner by the window and it might hold stereo equipment.

Throw a Throw, and Throw Pillows

If you have light color sofas and chairs, great. If you don’t, don’t worry! You don’t need to replace them or even slipcover them. Getting a slipcover to fit well seems like a pain in the butt, and custom slipcovers can cost.

If your furniture is dark, drape a lighter throw or blanket over it. Put lighter pillows on it. Here’s a dark brown leather sofa in our living room. It came with dark brown velvet pillows. I replaced those pillows with lighter and more colorful pillows. That lessened the dark brown a bit:

My One Room Challenge makeover room has a black leather sofa and dark red chairs. I’ll lighten up the black sofa with a throw and pillows. I’m not too worried about it. Why? See below …

After all the advice above, now I might just confuse everyone. Generally, unless you are an interior designer who is skilled at achieving a certain effect, you don’t want everything in your room to be light, white, beige. This will make your room have all the personality of a piece of Wonderbread.

Nooooo … bread is better when it’s handmade and textured, with some fruity jam on the bread, or dipped in deep golden olive oil with basil leaves.

Rooms need a variety of colors. I LOVE the combo of black, red and gold. So I’m keeping the black, red and gold in this room – all of it – and I’m just lightening up the big surfaces around the furniture and décor. That is enough to make this room a big mood-lifter instead of a heavy weight.

Get quotes from roofing contractors to install skylights; schedule job (canceled this idea – room should be bright enough without skylights)

Replace some radiant heat baseboards

Wash walls, repair some spots and prep for painting

Prime and paint the walls

Empty oak shelf unit, wash, light sand and prep for painting

Paint the shelves

Order wood grilles

Install wood grilles (decided not to do this now)

Fix trim under window

Remove broken Hunter-Douglas blinds from window

Whitewash the fireplace (or more like gray-wash or beige-wash)

Schedule carpet installation

Fix cracked areas in ceiling paint

Finish sewing curtain for window in garage door

Find canvas art for fireplace mantel

Frame fabric pieces from a vintage kimono and kuba cloth

Oh boy. We have a lot to do. Didn’t get much done during Week 3, except we decided things we are not doing! That’s not enough action. Week 4 is catch-up week. We have out-of-town guests coming to stay with us this weekend, so we were getting the house ready for them during much of our free time during Week 3.